Ford at the Highland Park

The case of Ford at the Highland Park is a clear example of the importance of the American management practices, because it shows how innovation can led to a revolution.

Ford was able to increase its output fifty times at the same time as increasing productivity and reducing its labour and production cost. This was due to a combination of factors; among them we have the continuous flow of the labour, which was achieved by organising the machines by sequence of use. This eliminated unnecessary employees engaged in material handling, thus reducing labour costs. Other factors were the introduction of a new assembly technique, widely known as the “MAL” (Moving Assembly Line), and the fact that Ford also extended its manufacturing innovative techniques into the components and materials that their products needed.

This success implied a constant search for dynamism and change in their production lines, in order to satisfy the growing demand. Innovation then, is a key part of the development of a successful business companies, it was back then and it is nowadays. In order to develop a successful business company, is necessary to pay as much attention as we can to operational detail, since it helps us to identify which activities add value to the product and makes it easier to optimize the process by being able to reduce costs and time. This is where the main idea of business analysis is born.

The idea of managing operational detail fascinated F.W. Taylor, whose contribution to this subject is commonly known as “Scientific Management”. He states that it is absolutely necessary to understand the existing operational details before making any changes to improve the method of work, in order to understand and determine “how work should be done”.

Furthermore, stablishing an standard for how work should be done is extremely helpful since the most important internal cost is the labour cost. This idea led Taylor to explore the concept of time measurement, because...